Älvorna

 

Förhoppningsvis en förvirrad gammal människa...eller älvorna! Förhoppningsvis inte allt annat otäckt det skulle kunna vara...

Mystiska brev till flera personer väcker oro

The King in Platinum

Best quote from the article linked above: “The only thing kookier would be a politically inflicted default”.

Be careful what you wish for, commander. 

Also, quite funny when they propose that the platinum coin should have a portrait of Donald Trump on it, just to drive Republicans nuts.

And no, I don´t really get it, except that somebody is getting desperate over there... 

Token of all tokens

Weird stuff I just learned from Wikipedia

Silver coins minted in Austria are used as currency in certain parts of Africa and the Middle East.

Maria Theresa thaler

During the Middle Ages, the rulers of Mecca were Zaydi Shia Muslims, while the rulers of Medina had strong Twelver Shia sympathies. Wtf?!

Sharifate of Mecca

Just wait until I tell you about that Somali book I´m currently reading... 

The lizard queen

This is what I always wanted, a commemorative coin with Queen Elizabeth II on one side, and Darth Vader on the other, issued by the obscure island of Niue in the Pacific Ocean. Had I gotten hold of this as a kid, I would have become king on the block! Still, I don't quite remember Queenie from "Star Wars", but perhaps she was in Jabba's entourage...?

All the world is watching

Why on earth would the Cook Islands, a semi-independent state in the South Pacific in close association with New Zealand, issue a commemorative coin about Brexit?! It seems that the Cook Island local government issues endless amounts of non-circulating coins for sale to collectors abroad. Apart from Brexit, they have commemorated such diverse items as Australia's first steam train, the resignation of Pope Benedict XVI, Charles Darwin, the Loch Ness monster, and – yes, you guessed it – Captain Cook. Most coins also show a portrait of the British queen Elizabeth II, since she is the nominal head of state of the Cook Islands (and of New Zealand). If the islanders pay commission to Her Majesty the Brexit Queen for using her likeness on their silver dollars, I cannot say…

Mother Slovakia

What a shame Amazon banned me from their site, now they will never be able to sell obscure products like the one I´m reviewing here, some kind of Slovak commemorative coins... 

Matica Slovenska is a Slovak patriotic and cultural association, founded in 1863. It has played an important role in Slovak history at various junctures, for instance during the Prague spring, and again during the 1990's, when it supported Slovak independence. Matica Slovenska was so well known and respected in its day, that the Czechoslovak Communist regime hijacked it (rather than prohibiting it outright), while severely restricting its field of activities. I'm not familiar with Matica's present activities, but I noticed that the Wikipedia entry on MS was written by an opponent. A Slovak who opposes the Slovak Mother? The times they are a'changing…

These are commemorative coins, issued in 2013 for the 150th anniversary of Matica's founding. I'm not entirely sure who is portrayed on the coins, but a fair guess would be (from left to right) Stefan Moyses, Karol Kuzmány and Ludovít Stúr. Moyses and Kuzmány were founding members of Matica Slovenska. Stúr, by contrast, was never a member of the association, having passed away several years earlier, but is considered the original founder of Slovak nationalism. Weirdly, Stúr was born in the same house as the much later leader of the Prague spring, Alexander Dubcek!

Not sure who would want to buy this obscure product (not Hungarian-Americans, I'm sure), but naturally I couldn't resist posting a review...